I'm sitting at Pangea in the MU finishing my lunch. Dinner last night was two pints of Lagunitas IPA at American Dream, so I threw in a Rice Krispies treat today in addition to a hummus and pesto wrap. That makes no sense, I know, but I was hungry and won't be having any dinner (two pints of IPA again?) until late because the final presidential debate is on at 6 tonight. I am hoping McCain doesn't try anything desperate; Palin has grown increasingly out of line lately, and I fear cable news networks, in attempting to be even-handed, are letting the GOP off the hook. Frank Rich agrees. On Monday the Washington Post released the results of a recent poll showing Obama firmly ahead of McCain nationally, and in typically red states.
I'm going to share a Carver poem I thought about earlier today.
Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year
Raymond Carver
October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen
I study my father's embarrassed young man's face.
Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string
of spiny yellow perch, in the other
a bottle of Carlsbad Beer.
In jeans and denim shirt, he leans
against the front fender of a 1934 Ford.
He would like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity,
Wear his old hat cocked over his ear.
All his life my father wanted to be bold.
But the eyes give him away, and the hands
that limply offer the string of dead perch
and the bottle of beer. Father, I love you,
yet how can I say thank you, I who can't hold my liquor either,
and don't even know the places to fish?
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4 comments:
Great post. Any time is a good time for a Carver poem. My students are reading "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" this week...
"I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark."
We should have some pints for dinner this weekend.
I was at WinCo this evening, they have a very large bulk section as I assume you know. One of their bulk items is full-sized Rice Krispy treats. On top of the bin in huge letters: DO NOT SAMPLE.
The poem... wow, that poem. What can I say?
I haven't read that poem in a long time. You make me miss American Dream. That's unfair. I want some! Two pints would be nice, too.
I'll have to stockpile some articles from over here for you. I bet you would be interested in what they're saying. Considering I have to read the papers everyday for work, I bet I could find something. I will say that this photo was all over the papers the other day:
http://www.independent.ie/multimedia/archive/00210/mccain_210766b.jpg
You might like Charles Goodrich's poetry. He's a local poet, you might be able to find something in the Library or the OSU bookstore (he used to be a carpenter for OSU). Good stuff.
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